


the strange notion of parents

by peradi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Baby Yoda Needs a Hug, Din Djarin Is A Good Dad, Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Fatherhood, Other, Protective Grogu | Baby Yoda, baby yoda thinks a lot more than he says, grogu is a good son, hinted Cannibalism, how baby yoda survived the temple, speculation about yodas species
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:20:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28428450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peradi/pseuds/peradi
Summary: Grogu has learned a lot in his long childhood. Why Elder Yoda will almost certainly not eat him. Why Master Skywalker will not raise a brood from a swamp. What it sounds like when all his friends are slaughtered, while he hides, small and useless. How to forget everything, and find a small, safe space in his own head.What the Shiny One sounds like when he is happy. How to protect those he loves. And, most importantly, what the word 'Father' means.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Comments: 52
Kudos: 650





	the strange notion of parents

**Author's Note:**

> i just love baby yoda okay
> 
> started off by me speculating if the reason yoda was such an unfeeling bastard was because his species had no notion of parental attachment and ended up here.

“You didn’t tell me you were a father!” says Master Skywalker, kneeling down to get a better look. His Force presence opens up like the forest canopy after rain, wide and welcoming; Grogu responds with a happy little trill, and a Force greeting of his own. 

“From my spawning land, he comes,” says the Elder one. “My bloodline, he is. But few bloodlines there are.”

“That doesn’t answer the question,” says Master Skywalker. He’s got a needling, teasing note in his voice, and the Force around him sparks with play; but Grogu can’t help but be a little wary, glancing up at the Elder with wide, worried eyes. This Elder is well-fed, and has never shown the slightest inclination to eat Grogu -- but Grogu’s instinct comes from a darker time, when his race was more plentiful, and cannibalism was not just restricted to the birthing pools. 

“Other matters to consider, we have,” says the Elder. 

“Of course we do,” says Master Skywalker, rolling his eyes; it’s a strange gesture, one that Grogu is unable to replicate, but he understands it. The insolence that Master Skywalker shows the Elder is absolutely delightful. It must be because Master Skywalker is so much stronger than the Elder. He doesn’t have to fear getting eaten. “Nice to meet you little one,” he says, addressing Grogu. Grogu holds his arms out imperiously. 

Master Skywalker understands at once, and scoops him up; Grogu coos with delight. This is one of the many reasons he prefers humans to his own species -- humans are so  _ tactile _ . They cuddle and pet and snuggle, and Grogu cannot get enough of it. He tugs at Master Skywalker’s soft hair (another human quirk that he just adores: his fur is bristly, but human hair is so  _ nice _ .)

“Aw, aren’t you the cutest,” says Master Skywalker. Grogu, encouraged, sucks one of Master Skywalker’s curls between his teeth and chews it curiously. 

It doesn’t taste especially nice. He spits it out. 

“Master Skywalker,” says the Elder. It’s an order. Grogu clings harder to Master Skywalker.

_ Don’t go! _ he says.  _ Stay _ .  _ Play. _

Humans  _ like _ playing, Grogu knows. Especially with him. And Master Skywalker wants to play; he can feel it in his Force presence, in how it glows with affection, darting quick and silvered. 

“Of course, this little one  _ can’t _ be yours now, can he?” says Master Skywalker, bouncing Grogu on his hip. “Because -- well. That would be an  _ attachment _ . Can’t have that. He’s of your  _ bloodline _ , but he is not  _ yours _ .”

“Indeed,” says the Elder. There’s an edge to his voice, and Master Skywalker’s grip on Grogu tightens, and Grogu  _ feels _ the tension in the air, but he cannot understand it. He reaches out into the Force, trying to soften the sharp edges he finds. 

_ Hush Grogu, _ Master Skywalker says, pressing his mouth to Grogu’s forehead. The  _ first _ time a human had done that, Grogu had panicked, and almost choked out a visiting dignitary. He had not yet learned that humans did not eat infants.  _ I’ll come back later. We’ll play then _ , Master Skywalker assures him. 

Grogu believes him. He can feel Master Skywalker’s heart: bright-burning, and overspilling with feeling.

You trust a heart like that. 

\--

_ I know why the Elder doesn’t like Master Skywalker _ , says Grogu, with tremendous confidence. Jayna cracks open one eye. They are  _ meant _ to be meditating, but there is no one to supervise them, so they are just sitting with their knees touching. Most of the other younglings are napping. The older ones are trying to play Sabacc. 

_ You do not _ , says Jayna, but Grogu feels her intrigue. 

_ Yes I do _ , he says. 

_ Master Yoda likes Master Skywalker. Everyone likes Master Skywalker _ . 

Grogu still can’t call the Elder  _ Yoda _ . It feels so profoundly disrespectful. 

_ The Elder doesn’t like Master Skywalker because he knows that Master Skywalker will have to eat his heart soon.  _

“What?” Jayna squeals, her eyes flying open. A few of the other younglings peer over, curious; Grogu feels their presence in the Force, buzzing inquiry at him.

For a moment he’s confused -- then he understands. Time passes differently for humans.  _ Soon _ generally means ‘in the next few weeks’. 

He clarifies, to avoid awkwardness:

_ In a few centuries, probably. When Master Skywalker is grown up. So he won’t eat the Elder’s heart  _ **_now_ ** _ \-- but in a few hundred years. When it’s time. _

“Master Skywalker  _ is _ grown up,” says Gouldi, a young Nautolan. 

_ No _ , says Grogu; a little vexed that his friends are speaking aloud, when they  _ know _ that he can’t speak Basic yet. 

(Not because he  _ can’t _ speak -- he can; he isn’t a baby -- but because his vocal cords have not yet grown in properly, and he isn’t capable of replicating the strange smooth sounds that make up Basic)

“Yeah, he is,” says Jayna. Grogu glares. 

_ You’re meant to be on my side! _

_ Sorry, _ she says.  _ But he is, he’s at least -- thirty.  _

_ That’s a  _ **_baby_ ** _ ,  _ Grogu says. 

_ What did you mean _ ? chimed in Taurus; a human, who has abandoned his game and wandered over to join the ever-increasing circle of younglings.  _ Master Skywalker isn’t going to eat Master Yoda’s heart -- _

_ It’s a me - ta - phor _ , says Gouldi, always keen to show off his knowledge of new words. Whenever he can, he has his nose buried in a book.  _ So you say one thing and you mean another -- _

_ No, _ Grogu says, now properly annoyed.  _ No it isn’t. Right now, the Elder is the leader, because he’s strong and old. But Master Skywalker will be the leader, because he is strong and young and he will spawn lots of strong children in the breeding pits --  _

That prompts a chorus of  _ ewww _ , and then a digression into the finer points of reproduction. Grogu is  _ appalled _ at how inefficient it all is for humans.

_ You mean that you’ll have to -- to carry babies in you _ ? he says, staring at Jayna. She squeals, and covers her tummy. 

_ No! I’m a Jedi! We don’t! It’s an attachment. It’s bad.  _

_ But you don’t attach to your babies!  _ Grogu says.  _ You have your breeding pits, and the Elders gather, and share their fluid and eggs, and then the Elders come back ten years later and gather up the little ones that make it -- _

Humans, it transpires, only have one baby at a time.  _ And _ the embryos are isolated inside a womb, so they can’t cull each other like  _ normal _ babies to appease the Force, and to keep the clan strong. 

Grogu expresses his misgivings -- how can you have a strong brood, a successful clan without birthing ponds and culling teeth? How do humans rear their young, if they are born so soft and flappy and useless? 

Jayna explains that humans have very strong packbonds with each other. Baby humans are raised communally, by caregivers called  _ Mother _ and  _ Father _ . They are  _ parented _ , which is a concept that Grogu finds both baffling and fascinating. It seems impractical. But perhaps it has its appeal, since human babies are so useless: unable to do more than babble.

In the end, the discussion loops back to Grogu’s original point, and he tries once more to explain it.  _ Master Skywalker is stronger than the Elder. That’s why they’re clashing. He’s going to be leader of the clan, and so he’s got to fight and kill him, and eat his heart, and eat up his brood, and replace it with his.  _

(As he says that, he remembers that it is important to tell Master Skywalker that though he may share certain genetic material with the Elder he is not, officially, his brood, as he was not reared by him.)

“Don’t be silly,” says Taurus. “Humans don’t do that. Besides. Master Skywalker is strong in the Force, but no one is stronger than Master Yoda,”

_ He is stronger, _ Grogu insists sulkily; but Taurus is older, and the others listen to him more than Grogu; and so Grogu lets the point drop. Soon, they are all happily cheering Taurus on as he demonstrates a series of extravagant flips and whirls that he picked up from watching the Knights. 

“Just think,” says Jayna. Grogu is settled in her lap as she pats his ears. “Soon that’s going to be us. Going out to fight.”

\--

It’s Jayna who saves him. She hears the screams of her fellow younglings --  _ Master Skywalker, what are you doing? Please stop, please no, PLEASE  _ \-- and grabs Grogu from where he’s frozen, wedged into his sleeping pallet, terror stoppering his throat. 

“Come on,” she says, picking him up. Her hands are so small. Humans grow so swiftly. Grogu wishes --  _ wishes _ \-- she was like him. If she was, she would be still in the birthing ponds; safe from everything but her own siblings. Eight years old, with decades of coddling before she would have to face the galaxy. 

But she’s human. She’s eight. They live brief, brilliant lives and they burn out. 

Jayna cradles him close, tears streaming down her face, and she runs. She runs, and they both feel Taurus fall: making a valiant, useless effort to keep Skywalker away from the little ones. They hurry up stairs, and they both have to stifle a sob as Gouldi dies, still asking  _ why what is wrong with you _ \--

_ What have we done wrong -- _

They crash into a room high up in the Temple. It’s a storage cupboard, and there is no further to go. 

Grogu slams the door shut. He can feel Master Skywalker’s presence in the air, heavy and thick as blood. All that love, all that brilliance, turned inside and turned sour, inverted into a greasy black mess that is almost as terrible as the death cries of his friends.

( _ They died asking Master Skywalker for help --  _ )

“We have to hide you,” says Jayna. “We have to hide you.”

\--

Grogu’s memory gets blurry, after this. 

\--

He remembers the pain. Not  _ physical _ pain, but soul-pain, an ache that split him open and tore him apart. The smell of blood. The burning temple. The pleas. The nightmares.

The hiding. The running. Kind people with kind eyes, and he tries not to remember their faces, or look into their hearts, because pack-bonding like a human only leads to loss. Grief is a many-jawed monster, and she’s always there.

So many people die trying to keep him safe. He loses count. 

What else can the child do to endure, but curl into his own head? He finds a soft, warm space there in his skull, safe from memory, safe from nightmares. 

He forgets his training. He forgets how to understand Basic. 

Eventually, he forgets his name. 

\--

But then: years later. A  _ lifetime  _ later. 

\--

The instant that the Shiny One appears over the child’s crib, reaching out toward him with one curious hand, the child knows that he is safe. He does not remember  _ how _ he knows

(Another memory lost: the name and shape of the Force)

but he does know, with a bone-deep certainty, that the Shiny One will not hurt him. That Shiny One, despite the smell of ash and blaster fire around him, is not a predator. 

The Shiny One makes mouth-noises at him, and others: words smooth and round as pebbles, a voice that rumbles low and deep. It’s a language that the child doesn’t understand, but he cannot shake the feeling that he  _ should _ , that he has heard it somewhere

(A sunlit room; other young ones, heads bowed --)

but he does not know where. So the feeling just  _ itches  _ under his skin.

When the monster charges the Shiny One, the child  _ panics _ . He’s never felt such absolute mind-bending terror; this one cannot die, he cannot. 

(Never felt such terror -- and yet he has, he  _ has _ \--)

( _ Master Skywalker there are too many of them -- _ )

He feels the air around them, twisting and dancing and  _ alive _ . 

(He does not remember the name of the Force, but he remembers it.)

And he focuses, and the air inside his lungs is the same as the air outside, fizzling and singing. With a thought, he reaches out, feeling the hot red presence of the beast; it’s bubbling blood, the meat of it, the  _ weight _ of it, how it distorts the sand around it, the  _ pressure -- _

This one will not die. He will  _ not _ die, because the child could not save the others

(What others? He cannot remember  _ when _ there were others, only that there  _ were _ others, once upon a time, and he could not save them, and they died, and --)

but this one, this one he  _ can _ save. The Shiny One. The child closes his eyes, and holds the shape of the mudhorn in his mind, feeling every follicle of hair on it, the way that the wind moves over its eyes; holding it in one bright instance, one immortal heartbeat; and then he  _ lifts _ . 

\--

The Shiny One unscrews the ball for him, and the child cups it in his hands. It reminds him of --

(Training)

something. 

And that is what continues to happen, over the days spent in the cockpit, pressing the fun buttons, and eating yummy frogs. The itch under his skin gets worse, and the child remembers a little bit more. Then a little bit more. A sunlit room. Conversations about how children are raised. He does not remember what species he is; nor does he recall who he spoke with. They were kind. That much he knows. He cannot picture their faces. They appear like the flash of light on beskar. There, and gone. 

Finally, however, a word rises from the swamp of memory.

_ Papa. Father. _

There’s no word in his native tongue for it -- he knows this, even if he does not know what his native tongue  _ is _ \-- but he knows the  _ concept _ .

It means safety. It means soft hair to chew on

(the child does not know why this is an image he associates with the word Father, since he has never seen his father’s hair --)

and a warm heart against his ear. It means a ball, resting in his hands, tossed back at forth. A game.  _ Play with me _ . 

\--

The nice lady’s name is Ahsoka, and her Force presence -- for the child now remembers the name for the power that twists and dances around him -- is like a hot spring on a ice-bare mountain slope: a haven. The child closes his eyes and sinks into it.

_ Do you understand me? _

_ Yes, _ the child says, barely able to contain his delight: finally, someone who will understand him!  _ Can you speak to Papa? I’ve tried, but he can’t understand me, he just makes these strange mouth-noises, and I don’t understand those so --  _

_ He can’t speak to you like this. He is not strong in the Force. _

_ Oh.  _ The child’s ears dip a little.  _ Am I? _

_ Yes, darling, you are. Stronger than most. Do you mind if I ask you some questions? About what you remember? _

_ I don’t remember anything _ , says the child, sharper and swifter than intended. The thought is accompanied by a psychic  _ snap _ , like an elastic band against Ahsoka’s Force presence. The child did not even know he could do it until he does, and Ahsoka rocks back. 

_ I’m sorry,  _ she says, and opens her mind further, welcoming him in.  _ I don’t want to pry -- _

_ No, no, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that I could -- I didn’t mean to hurt you! _

_ You didn’t hurt me, darling.  _

They sit in silence for a moment longer. The child feels the stone under him, warm and slick with rain. 

_ I want to know _ , he ventures, after a while.  _ I feel -- I feel like a part of me has been lost.  _

_ I’ll guide you back _ , says Ahsoka.  _ Lean on me, and if it is too much, say.  _

The child nods. And, just like that, he and Ahsoka are standing in a beskar-bright corridor. Images play on the walls. Faces. Children. The Elder. Sunlight through trees, the smell of marshland, the squall of siblings, and then the sharp, ugly sound of a lightsaber igniting, flared blue against the dark, and the screaming, and Jayna  _ we have to hide you _ and faces, all those faces, all those lives, dead because of  _ him-- _

_ Okay, that’s enough, that’s enough _ , Ahsoka pulls them both back to their bodies.  _ Open your eyes _ , she instructs, noting the tension in the child’s face.  _ Open your eyes, look at the stars, look at me. You’re safe. _

The child burbles miserably, and Ahsoka gathers him up, warm and close. 

_ I’m frightened _ , he says.  _ I don’t remember why they are hunting me, but they are hunting me, and I don’t like it, and they are hurting Papa, and I need to look after Papa, I do, he doesn’t have the Force -- _

_ He’s more than capable of caring for himself, little one,  _ Ahsoka says. The child’s hand fist in her robes. 

_ I can’t lose him too. I can’t, I can’t, I couldn’t save the others, I have to save him -- _

_ Shush. It’s okay my darling. It’s okay. Hush. I have an idea. Let’s just try and find you one memory -- just one -- we can do it together.  _

_ Okay _ , the child says. This time, Ahsoka rests their foreheads together, and guides him back: the hallway is still as bright as Papa’s helmet, but there are no flashing images, and the child clings to her with hands and feet and Force as she walks them back into the churning morass of his mind. 

When they return, it is with a word. A name. 

\--

Papa says a string of his normal nonsense, while Grogu toys with the small metal sphere.

He does not remember much else, but he has his name back now, and with it comes a security he did not know he had been lacking. A name; an anchor to pin himself to. 

“Grogu?” says Papa, his voice lilting upwards. Grogu’s head snaps up.

_ Papa! Can you talk properly now? The nice lady said that you couldn’t _ , Grogu says, throwing the words out into the Force,  _ but can you talk now?  _

“Grogu,” says Papa again, and Grogu brightens once more, and Papa chuckles, low and happy.

_ You need to learn to say more than that _ , Grogu chides.  _ But it isn’t a bad start _ . 

No. Not a bad start at all.

  
  
  



End file.
